German utility Uniper may be forced to impair a loan provided to the 55 bcm/year Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if the project fails due to US sanctions. Uniper committed to cover up to €950m of the project costs. Those investments are not subject to the current US sanctions. A consortium associating Gazprom (50%), Uniper, Shell, OMV, Wintershall, and Engie (10% each) is building the 1,230 km-long Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The project, which will double the throughput of the current Nord Stream pipeline, is causing controversy as Germany would increase its dependence on Russian gas while bypassing Ukraine.
In December 2019, the United States imposed sanctions on companies working on the project. In June 2020, US senators announced a bill to expand the sanctions on firms engaged in the gas pipeline project. The new bill, if approved, will expand the sanctions to include penalties on firms not only involved in the pipe-laying but also those which provide the project underwriting services, insurance, and services or facilities for the vessels (welding equipment, retrofitting or tethering of the ships). In January 2020, Russia postponed the commissioning of Nord Stream 2 from mid-2020 to the end of 2020 or early 2021, due to US sanctions against the gas pipeline that could delay the projects by several months.